The problem: buy price minus sell price is not your profit
You bought 0.5 Bitcoin at $30,000. You sold at $65,000. The price went up 2.17x. Your profit is $17,500, right? $65,000 x 0.5 = $32,500 exit value, minus $30,000 x 0.5 = $15,000 cost, equals $17,500. Simple.
Wrong. You paid a fee to buy (typically 0.1-0.5 percent of the purchase), you paid a fee to sell (same percentage of the sale), and if you are in the US you owe short-term capital gains tax (15-37 percent) on the net profit. The exchange fee on a $15,000 buy at 0.25 percent is $37.50. The fee on a $32,500 sell at 0.25 percent is $81.25. That is $118.75 in fees. At a 15 percent tax rate on the remaining $17,381.25 profit, you owe $2,607.19 in tax. Your actual take-home profit is $14,774.06 — $2,726 less than the naive calculation. That is 15.6 percent of your gross profit consumed by fees and taxes that most first-time traders forget to account for.
The Crypto Profit Calculator calculates net profit after buy fees, sell fees, and taxes for single trades and dollar-cost averaging (DCA) scenarios. It computes break-even price (the price at which you exactly break even after fees), ROI (return on investment after everything), and price multiplier (the raw price ratio).
Fastest path
Open the Crypto Profit Calculator, enter your buy price per unit, sell price per unit, and quantity for a single trade. Or switch to the DCA tab to enter multiple buy entries (USD amount and price at each entry). Set your buy fee percentage, sell fee percentage, and tax rate. The tool shows net profit after fees, net profit after tax, ROI, break-even price, and price multiplier. Copy results to clipboard or download as CSV.
Single trade math
For a single trade, the inputs are straightforward: buy price per unit, sell price per unit, and quantity. The calculation proceeds in five steps:
Step 1 — Initial investment. buyPrice x quantity. If you bought 0.5 BTC at $30,000, your initial investment is $15,000.
Step 2 — Exit value. sellPrice x quantity. At $65,000, your exit value is $32,500.
Step 3 — Fees. Two fees, both percentages:
- Buy fee:
initialInvestment x (buyFeePct / 100). At 0.25 percent: $15,000 x 0.0025 = $37.50. - Sell fee:
exitValue x (sellFeePct / 100). At 0.25 percent: $32,500 x 0.0025 = $81.25. - Total fees: $118.75.
Note that the sell fee is calculated on the exit value, not the initial investment. When the price has gone up, the sell fee is larger than the buy fee because it is a percentage of a larger number. When the price has gone down, the sell fee is smaller. This asymmetry means fees cost more on profitable trades than on unprofitable ones.
Step 4 — Net profit after fees. grossProfit - totalFees where grossProfit = exitValue - initialInvestment. $32,500 - $15,000 = $17,500 gross. $17,500 - $118.75 = $17,381.25 net.
Step 5 — Tax. netProfit x (taxPct / 100), applied only if net profit is positive. If you lost money, you owe no tax on the trade (though you may be able to use the loss to offset other gains — a tax-loss harvesting strategy the tool does not model). At 15 percent tax: $17,381.25 x 0.15 = $2,607.19. Net after tax: $14,774.06.
The tool shows each of these steps in the results panel, so you can see exactly where your money goes.
DCA math: weighted average, not simple average
Dollar-cost averaging means buying fixed dollar amounts at regular intervals regardless of price. If you invest $1,000 per month for three months at prices of $25,000, $35,000, and $45,000, your cost basis is not the average of the prices ($35,000). It is the total invested divided by the total units purchased.
Each $1,000 purchase buys a different number of units:
- At $25,000: $1,000 / $25,000 = 0.040 BTC
- At $35,000: $1,000 / $35,000 = 0.0286 BTC
- At $45,000: $1,000 / $45,000 = 0.0222 BTC
Total invested: $3,000. Total units: 0.0908 BTC. Weighted average buy price: $3,000 / 0.0908 = $33,039.65.
This is lower than the simple average of the three prices ($35,000) because you bought more units when the price was low and fewer when the price was high. That is the mathematical advantage of DCA — your average cost is weighted toward the lower prices because fixed dollar amounts buy more units at lower prices.
The tool's DCA tab computes this automatically. Enter each buy as a USD amount and a price per unit. The tool sums the total invested, sums the total units (amount / price for each entry), and divides to get the effective buy price. This effective buy price is then used in the same profit calculation as the single trade mode — exit value, fees, tax, net profit.
Break-even price: when fees matter
Break-even price is the sell price at which net profit equals zero — the price where you get back exactly what you put in, after fees. Below this price, you lose money. Above it, you profit.
The formula: breakEvenPrice = effectiveBuyPrice x (1 + buyFeePct + sellFeePct).
For a buy at $30,000 with 0.25 percent fees on both sides:
breakEvenPrice = 30,000 x (1 + 0.0025 + 0.0025) = 30,000 x 1.005 = $30,150
The break-even price is $150 above your buy price — the amount needed to cover both fees. If you sell at exactly $30,150, you break even. If you sell below $30,150, you lose money even if the price went up slightly.
The break-even formula is an approximation. It applies the sell fee percentage to the buy price rather than the sell price (which is unknown at break-even). For small fee percentages (under 1 percent), the error is negligible — a few cents on a $30,000 price. For high fee percentages (5 percent or more, common on some altcoin exchanges), the approximation diverges from the true break-even by a few dollars. The tool uses the approximation for simplicity.
ROI vs price multiplier
Two metrics that sound similar but measure different things:
Price multiplier is sellPrice / buyPrice. If you bought at $30,000 and sold at $65,000, the multiplier is 2.17x. This is the raw price movement — what the asset did, not what you made. It ignores fees, taxes, and position sizing.
ROI (Return on Investment) is (netAfterTax / initialInvestment) x 100. This is your actual return after all costs. For the $30,000 → $65,000 trade with 0.25 percent fees and 15 percent tax: $14,774.06 / $15,000 x 100 = 98.49 percent ROI.
The gap between 2.17x (117 percent price increase) and 98.49 percent ROI is fees and taxes. A 117 percent gross return becomes a 98.49 percent net return — 18.5 percentage points consumed by costs. This gap widens with higher fees, higher tax rates, and smaller price movements. On a 10 percent price increase, the same fees and tax would consume roughly 5.5 percentage points — over half the gain.
Fee structures: exchange fees and network fees
The tool's fee inputs represent exchange trading fees — the percentage your exchange charges per trade. These vary by exchange and order type:
Maker fees (limit orders that add liquidity) are typically lower — 0.1-0.2 percent on Binance, Coinbase Pro, and Kraken. Taker fees (market orders that remove liquidity) are higher — 0.2-0.5 percent. Many exchanges offer tiered fee schedules that decrease with higher 30-day trading volume. A high-volume trader might pay 0.02 percent; a first-time trader pays 0.5 percent.
The tool does not account for network (gas) fees — the cost of transferring crypto on-chain. Ethereum ERC-20 token transfers can cost $5-50 in gas fees depending on network congestion. Bitcoin transfer fees are typically $1-10. These are flat fees, not percentages, and they apply when you withdraw crypto from an exchange to a wallet. If you buy and sell on the same exchange without withdrawing, network fees do not apply. If you withdraw to a self-custody wallet and later deposit back to sell, add the network fees to your total cost manually.
Tax: short-term vs long-term
In the United States, crypto is treated as property for tax purposes. Every trade — crypto-to-fiat, crypto-to-crypto, and crypto-for-goods — is a taxable event. The tax rate depends on how long you held the asset:
Short-term gains (held 12 months or less) are taxed as ordinary income. The rate depends on your income bracket: 10 percent, 12 percent, 22 percent, 24 percent, 32 percent, 35 percent, or 37 percent. A moderate-income trader in the 22 percent bracket pays 22 percent on short-term crypto gains.
Long-term gains (held more than 12 months) get preferential rates: 0 percent, 15 percent, or 20 percent, depending on income. Most taxpayers fall in the 15 percent long-term bracket.
The tool's tax input is a single percentage that applies to net profit. Set it to your marginal rate for short-term trades (e.g., 22 or 24 percent) or your long-term rate (e.g., 15 percent). The tool does not distinguish between short-term and long-term — you set the rate based on your holding period.
Crypto tax is complex beyond what the tool models. Crypto-to-crypto trades (trading BTC for ETH) are taxable events even though no fiat changed hands. Yield farming, staking rewards, and airdrops have their own tax treatment. Tax-loss harvesting can offset gains with losses. For anything beyond simple buy-and-sell, use dedicated crypto tax software (Koinly, CoinTracker) or consult a tax professional.
Gotchas
- The sell fee is calculated on the exit value, not the initial investment. When the price has risen significantly, the sell fee can be substantially larger than the buy fee. On a 5x gain, the sell fee is 5x the buy fee in dollar terms (same percentage, larger base). This is why high-fee exchanges eat into profitable trades more than unprofitable ones — the fee scales with the exit value, which is highest on your best trades.
- DCA average price is weighted, not simple. The common mistake is averaging the purchase prices: ($25,000 + $35,000 + $45,000) / 3 = $35,000. The correct calculation is total-invested / total-units: $3,000 / 0.0908 = $33,039.65. The difference ($1,960) comes from buying more units at lower prices. If you DCA with varying dollar amounts (not equal amounts), the weighting shifts further toward the larger purchases. The tool computes the weighted average correctly from the amount and price of each entry.
- The tool does not model crypto-to-crypto trades. If you bought BTC, traded it for ETH, and later sold the ETH for USD, you have two taxable events. The BTC-to-ETH trade is taxable based on the USD value of ETH at the time of the trade. The tool only calculates fiat-denominated buy-and-sell profit. For multi-hop trades, calculate each leg separately.
- Break-even price is an approximation. The formula
buyPrice x (1 + buyFee% + sellFee%)applies the sell fee to the buy price rather than the unknown sell price. For fees under 1 percent, the error is a few cents. For high-fee exchanges (5 percent+), the true break-even is slightly higher than the tool reports. The approximation is conservative — it slightly underestimates break-even, meaning you might think you are breaking even when you are slightly below. - Tax only applies to profitable trades. If your net profit after fees is negative, the tool sets tax to zero. This is correct for the trade itself, but it ignores the potential value of the loss. In the US, capital losses can offset capital gains and up to $3,000 of ordinary income per year. A $5,000 loss on one trade can reduce your tax bill by $1,100 if you are in the 22 percent bracket and have gains to offset. The tool does not model loss offsets — it treats each trade independently.
Summary
- Crypto profit is not sell price minus buy price. Every trade has two percentage fees (buy and sell), and profitable trades owe tax. A 2.17x price multiplier becomes a 98.49 percent ROI after 0.25 percent fees and 15 percent tax — 18.5 percentage points consumed by costs that first-time traders forget.
- DCA cost basis is total-invested divided by total-units, not the average of purchase prices. Fixed dollar amounts buy more units at lower prices, weighting the average cost downward. The tool computes this automatically from each DCA entry's USD amount and price.
- Break-even price is
buyPrice x (1 + buyFee% + sellFee%)— the price at which fees are exactly covered. Below this, you lose money. The formula is an approximation that is accurate for fees under 1 percent. Exchange fees vary by order type (maker vs taker) and volume tier, and the tool does not account for network gas fees on withdrawals. - US crypto tax depends on holding period: short-term (under 12 months) taxed as ordinary income (10-37 percent), long-term (over 12 months) taxed at 0-20 percent. The tool applies a single tax rate to net profit only. Crypto-to-crypto trades are taxable events. For complex scenarios, use dedicated crypto tax software.
- Use the Crypto Profit Calculator for single trade and DCA profit calculation, the Options Profit Calculator for options trading P/L, the Compound Interest Calculator for long-term investment growth, and the Dividend Calculator for dividend income projection.